


All the stages and the stars

by Full_Of_Grace



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/F, and I do love to suffer, if you love to suffer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-06 20:41:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18858715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Full_Of_Grace/pseuds/Full_Of_Grace
Summary: Some mornings Ashara braids Elia’s hair.





	All the stages and the stars

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this instead of studying for AP tests. The tenses might be a little wonky, for which I apologize. 
> 
> I love these two and being sad about them.  
> Title from Supercut by Lorde

Some mornings, Ashara braids Elia’s hair like a servant. First she’ll take the fine shell comb and coax it through the length of her hair. A hundred strokes, or a thousand. Gentle, diligent, she’ll run her fingers through the long dark strands, a touch of perfumed oil on her hands, to sweeten Elia’s day. Then all there is to do is twist them into braids. 

It’s not a long process, the braiding, but Ashara relishes every moment of it, every breath. Watching her own hands move in the mirror. Watching Elia, and Elia’s dark eyes. Looking and looking away. Some mornings, when she’s done with the braids, she’ll lean down next to Elia’s ear. “You look lovely, your grace.” 

Sometimes Elia will close her eyes. Sometimes she’ll keep them wide open. Twice she has turned her head and leaned their foreheads together. Looked at Ashara straight on, her gaze as black and as wide as the horizon at twilight. Ashara has drunk from those eyes like a man dying of thirst. 

If they had been girls together she would have done this for her every day. The first time they’d met had been at the end of their childhood, when the old Princess had been bringing her children up to Casterly Rock and stopped at Starfall on the way. Elia was wrapped up in layers of traveling clothes, in a feverish spell and chilly even in the thick evening heat. Ashara was fascinated by her, that glimpse of a princess between the fabric. The most beautiful secret she’d ever seen.

Ashara wishes, more than she wishes almost anything, that they had been girls together. It’s some great cruelty of the universe that they found each other at sixteen and not eleven, not seven, not birth. That week Elia was at Starfall, on the way to Casterly Rock, she had spent much of her time in Ashara’s rooms. They had talked for hours about everything they could think to talk about– oranges and flowers and fountains and tourneys and kingdoms and the marriages they’d hoped they’d have and the marriages they’d thought they’d have, and how many stars there might be in the sky. Girlish talk, of silly dreams.

Elia, bound for Casterly, had been told by her mother that she might marry the little Lannister heir, Jaime, not yet eight years old. She’d wrinkled her nose and told Ashara she’d rather not. Ashara had replied, in a hysterical and confessional tone, that she herself would rather not marry at all. She’d rather stay free. Elia had laughed at her. “We’re noble girls. We have to marry. And then we’ll do our duty, like it or not.”

But that was Elia, always duty bound. When the Martells had returned rejected from their journey to Lannisport, and stopped in Starfall again, Ashara had joined them on the trail back to Sunspear, bound to Elia’s retinue. In that last night in Starfall, she’d taken Elia up the top of the palestone sword, the tallest tower in the castle. They’d laid on their backs, the heat from the day still stuck in the stone and burning through their clothes. The sound of the ocean lulling them like a mother with an infant.

Elia had pointed out the constellations she knew– the dancing maid, the stallion, the lovers. Ashara had shouted over the Sword of Morning. Elia had laughed. Then they had been quiet for a long time. Ashara had turned to look at Elia, the lines of her face barely visible in the dim illumination of the stars. Ashara had felt struck by the same heavy and confessional weight that had compelled her to disclose her frustrations with marriage. “I am bound to your service.” She’d told Elia. “I am bound to stay with you. My duty is to stay with you” 

Sprawled out as they were, their arms had crossed over each other at the elbows. Ashara grabbed Elia’s hand in her own. She brought it to her lips and kissed the knuckles. Next to her, Elia had gasped ever so softly. She’d turned and looked at Ashara. The same force in those same dark eyes. Then they’d kissed each other for what seemed like hours, till Elia grew breathless and began to cough, and they retired to bed.

For seven years Ashara had had her. They’d spent the days together, spent the nights. Eating oranges in the water garden, joking at feasts, catching each other’s eyes while they danced with whatever partners had chosen them. Knowing they had chosen each other. 

But they had not been girls forever, and duty came for them, and once more Elia was wrapped up to travel like a babe in swaddling clothes. When Ashara saw a sliver of her face beneath the wrappings, it had not felt like she was seeing a treasure she could dig up. It felt like seeing a body to be buried. 

Elia had said “You could marry yourself, you know. Find your own household. I don’t want to take your whole life.”

Ashara had said “I am bound to your service. My duty is to stay with you.”

They had not kissed once in King’s Landing. When Ashara had spent the night in Elia’s bed, it had been as nothing but a comfort, a warmth through her sickliest chills. They were noble women, and they did their duty.

So now Ashara braids Elia’s hair, anoints her with sweet oils. She whispers quiet praise into the warm skin of Elia’s neck. She is content with this. She must be content with this.

Now when men dance with her Ashara looks them in the eyes and feels herself chosen. She gives herself joy without marriage. Propriety be damned, and duty be damned. Ashara has only one duty, and she is fulfilling it every time she braids Elia’s hair, or comforts her through a fever, or wipes the tears from Elia’s eyes when Rhaegar shows once more that he does not appreciate the gift he’s been given.

Ashara grows careless, makes a mistake, and her belly starts to bulge, slightly, through her tight court dresses. Elia tells her to return to Starfall. War looms at the edges of the kingdom, and King’s Landing is no place for for a child to be born. 

“Then King’s Landing is no place for children.” Ashara says. Elia’s prince and princess play infant games in the nursery. “King’s Landing is no place for you.”

Elia puts their foreheads together. Ashara kisses her fingertips. She does not cry.

Starfall is the home of her childhood, pale and lonely. Months pass, her child dies inside her, dark wings bring dark words. A man she’d danced with once brings her her brother’s sword and the news of his passing. And Elia too is… Elia is… 

That night, on the top of the palestone sword, Ashara braids her own hair, her fingers and eyes both bone dry. Above her the stars wink brightly– the dancing maid, the stallion, the lovers. The stones of the tower are hot on her bare feet. The sea sings her a lullaby.


End file.
